Two years ago you asked me for a pea coat for Christmas. I got you that pea coat, a grey one, from Old Navy. You loved it and wore it everywhere. You were wearing that coat the night that you died, it was stripped from you at the hospital and disappointingly enough, I cannot recall what happened to it after that.
I sat in church this evening and grinned recalling last year's church service. You made fun of my shoes, calling them "inappropriate for the occasion". We sat on either side of our mom during the service and sat there giggling our way through every Christmas song because of mom's insistence on trying to pretend to be part of an opera. Afterwards we all came back to my house and while I was baking some cookies, you and mom found The Sound of Music playing on TV. One of my fondest Christmas memories will always be the sound of you and mom belting out "I am 16 going on 17" in what can only be described as a very special "Kiessling" rendition of a classic song. Jared rolled his eyes and I joined in, and then we laughed hysterical. They say that scent is the strongest receptor for memory, but the sound of your voices will always ring true in my heart.
You showed up Christmas morning excited to see what Santa had left in your stocking. I thought it was hilarious that I had lovingly stuffed it with coal, a used candle, and a miniature sweater. It was that very day that we went to our family gathering at our grandmother's house and exchanged our last words to each other....and they weren't pretty. However, that wasn't the first Christmas that ended with us fighting. I remembered a Christmas several year ago, one of our first in Savannah, in which you asked for a Dane Cook CD. I searched high and low and finally found one. However, when you unwrapped it on Christmas day you quickly informed me that it wasn't the right one and that I needed to go exchange it for the correct one. Outraged and irritated, a heated argument that consisted of me calling you an ungrateful brat and you telling me that I don't do anything right ensued. It ended with me telling you to leave. A month later you called me asking if I wanted to go see a movie, as if nothing happened.
Christmas was your favorite time of the year, although you thought your birthday should be a national holiday, Christmas actually is. There was something about your personality that you could find the good in anything bad but it was as though Christmas was the one time of the year that everyone else felt the same, which instantly brought a more annoying projection of your joy.
I went to the Memorial Garden behind the church and left a flower for you before church tonight. While I have stood in that very spot lots of times before, it was the first time that I stood there and felt joy, the same annoying projection of joy that you brought to me for the last 19 years. And I did not shed a tear.
So while there isn't a creature stirring tonight there is less noise, loud voices, and singing and I know that holidays, birthdays, and other events will come and go in our lives and they will never be the same, for the first time tonight, I felt like we would be okay. I felt your irradiating joy and that it is a good feeling.
So Merry Christmas little sister, while it is not the same without you, I know that you have the best seat in the house for your favorite time of the year, and someday we will celebrate together again.
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